Which is the Saturn's killer app? A weird 1 hour long arcade game without much content or goals besides high scores?A 3d fighting game with no unlockables, lore which requires another player to fully appreciate because otherwise the non existent single player sucks?Some obscure jrpg that would just be another average game on the Playstation?Really which is the Sega Saturn's magnum opus?
>>12519706Elevator action returns which objectively speaking is superior to all n64 and PS1 games
Exhumed
At the time, being able to play Virtua Fighter 1/2, Virtua Cop, and Virtual On at home was a big plus. Plus the Panzer Dragoon games.But you're not going to find a satisfying answer, because if the Saturn had a true killer app it would've sold more. I love the system, but it didn't have any equivalent to Final Fantasy VII or Super Mario 64/Ocarina of Time.
Genuinely one of the best games of 1996, and of all time.
>>12519727Was awesome trying this when it was new, can confirm. Shining Force III (even though we only got the first part) was great too.
>>12519706
>>12519706panzer dragoon
>>12519706You're not going to like this, but the Saturn and Sega's philosophy was bringing arcade games into your home, so all of the killer games for the Saturn play like arcade games.My favorite is Burning Rangers.
>>12519727>>12519883>>12519889/thread
>>12519706Battle Garegga I guess>A weird 1 hour long arcade game without much content or goals besides high scores?Okay yeah but it's really deep actually
the real joke here is putting crash up there with the other 5 games.
>Nights into Dreams>Panzer Dragoon>Virtua Fighter 2
>>12519706>Which is the Saturn's killer app?They didn't have one. People here are listing good games but a "killer app" isn't about whether you like it or quality but something that moves systems on mass.I think there were 2 potential candidates for a killer app. The first is obviously Sonic but not that awful Sonic Xtreme fisheye lens bullshit. They would have needed Sonic Team to lock in and have something fun ready for 1996.The second and less talked about is a new 3D Phantasy Star. We've all seen picrel for Saturn sales in Japan. It wildly pulls away with the release of FF7. Sega needed a game on that level to compete, unlike Genesis with PSIV, they had the growing install base for a showdown and Phantasy Star was well regarded. You might ask, how could you expect it to compete with FF7? The same way the original Sonic did with Mario, by purposely positioning as a rival.>this will save the SaturnI think so. With Sonic for the West and Phantasy Star for the East, so long as the games are good quality, I think they would have functioned as "killer apps" and moved enough Saturn's to keep people developing / porting games to the system. Even if the graphics are not as good, even if it is ass to develop for, companies will program through broken glass to get their game on a console that sells. I don't think it would beat PlayStation but I could see it getting a respectable 20-30 million sales off the backs of these two titles and the games that come after because of them.
>>12519706>weird 1 hour long arcade game without much content or goals besides high scores?I'm guessing you are referring to NiGHTS? To git gud you will need to put in way more than an hour and it has tons of neat little details that I still discover to this day. As for it being a "Killer App" I think they wanted it to be and in some aspects like music/gameplay/sovl it qualifies(my opinion) but from a general audience perspective it needed to have more for sure. 7 stages although all great is not enough when compared to likes of OoT or MGS. >>12519883>panzer dragoonZwei makes a better case than PD but either way they both suffer from the same problem NiGHTS has which is not enough overall content.
>>12519706>Some obscure jrpg that would just be another average game on the Playstation?What's so special about FFVII compared to "average" JRPGs, even?
>>12520994Thr marketing was big
>>12520994It came out for the right console at the right time.The PS1 sold a lot so we can assume and FF7 was among the first RPGs on the it so it's likely that it was the first RPG of many players.Sure you might wonder why the same thing didn't happen to Wild Arms or another early PS1 RPG but there was also the factor of marketing that led to people buying FF7 instead of WA1.
>>12520994>What's so special about FFVII compared to "average" JRPGs, even?I mean for a start, it's Final Fantasy, the name alone puts it head and shoulders above the "average JRPG", brand matters, the series name carries weight similar to Street Fighter or Mario. It was also the series first foray into 3D, something the other major JRPG series, Dragon Quest was years away, people were hungry. Then there was the gritty, magitek, urban dystopia vibe combined with excellent music, it captured peoples imaginations in a way another Tolkien / D&D adjacent RPG just couldn't.>>12521074>Thr marketing was bigTrue. Though marketing can only take you so far, actually delivering on the promised magic is what gets word of mouth going and that combined is what made FFVII sell out of control. Especially in America where the JRPG scene was small, it was a "you gotta try this man" type of game.
Shenmue. But it got moved to Dreamcast
>>12519706For me it was mostly a split between Guardian Heroes, Legend of Oasis and Shining Force 3. But Rayearth, Darius Gaiden, Virtua Fighter, Darkstalkers and Gun Griffon were other big favorites. Of the 6 games in OP I only like 2, and of them FF7 was still kinda disappointing.
>>12519706Panzer Dragoon Saga, which is unfortunately for US users is one of the most expensive games to collect on the system because of how few copies they printed. I really wish Sega would do a PC port or remaster of it for modern systems because it may have been too little too late for the Saturn, but if the system had been in a better place in the years leading up to PDS, it could have been the game that cemented the system's legacy rather than being its last hurrah.
>>12520994Just compare the production values of FFVII to RPGs released shortly before it, it was incredibly impressive when new. The way it approached storytelling and battle animations and everything was new. The gameplay was great too, fun battles and lots to do and find, it was loved for the same reasons people already loved the SNES Final Fantasies. >>12521076>Sure you might wonder why the same thing didn't happen to Wild Arms or another early PS1 RPG but there was also the factor of marketing that led to people buying FF7 instead of WA1.As someone who had both when they were new, Wild Arms was pretty cool but FFVII felt like a massive leap ahead of it. >>12521094>marketing can only take you so far, actually delivering on the promised magic is what gets word of mouth going and that combined is what made FFVII sell out of controlThis. Plus a fair number of people like me who were big Final Fantasy fans and were excited for it after VI. I didn't need any marketing, I intentionally waited for the commercials to air on MTV because I was already so hyped for the game.
>>12521140>expensiveIf you can read moon runes the jap copy is dirt cheap.>really wish Sega would do a PC port or remaster of it for modern systemsiirc they lost the code
>>12520994Polyganal tifa titties
>>12519706Sonic X-treme
>>12521140>I really wish Sega would do a PC port or remaster of it for modern systemsHave you tried the remake?
The Saturn's biggest game was Virtua Fighter. It sold really, really well in Japan, but it sold way less everywhere else. That's the story of the Saturn in a nutshell really.>What was the biggest Saturn game outside of Japan?In terms of games that were advertised and hyped the most, it has to be Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, Daytona USA, and of course NiGHTS into Dreams. The thing is all these games sold decently but they didn't explode on to the market and change everything.>Everyone says that Panzer Dragoon / Saga is the best Saturn gameFans of the Saturn say this to represent the entire legacy of the console, but gaming press and the average gamer just saw them as pretty good. They never sold Final Fantasy or Mario or Pokemon numbers.
First of all, swap Crash Bandicoot for Gran Turismo for the PS1.Saturn's killer games were Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally and Nights... Into Dreams
>>12519706>A weird 1 hour long arcade game without much content or goals besides high scores?Based Saturn. Still filtering jrpg/narrative “gamer” subhumans after all these years.
>>12519707fpbp
>>12521123This is some awulf mspaint graphics, maybe the gameplay is good but it looks fucking awful for the "best 2d console ever"
>>12519727This is indeed the best Saturn game but killer apps had to be 3d in 1995
>>12521214Seethe harder. Ocarina of Time is the mostest most great game evar made. Gay Shiturn action games will never match it's perfection.
>>12519706VF2 is the closest thing it got to a killer app.
>>12519706>killer app?Saturn is for hc gamers. Thats clearly not you OP.
>>12521392I kinda like the chunky pixels when sprites are on the front plane, but I get what you're saying. It doesn't overall look as nice as some other games like Legend of Oasis or Astal. Mostly I love it for the gameplay. Especially with two people playing it's crazy fun chaos. Up there as one of my favorite co-op games of all time.
Auster's Descent Into Madness II port was nice although not as good as the original Amiga version
>>12522858Legend of Oasis honestly looks worse than its predecessor in my opinion. Granted, Beyond Oasis is one of the best looking games on Mega Drive, but still.
>>12522923It feels less consistent I agree, I love both though. Beyond Oasis is a top 5 Genesis game for me, it's incredibly fun.
>>12521452>VF2 is the closest thing it got to a killer app.And just to show how dire that is, Virtua Fighter 2 sold 2.5 million copies. The best selling PS1 game Grand Turismo sold 10.8 million and the best selling N64 title, Super Mario 64 11.9 million. The 19th best N64 game Perfect Dark sold 2.5 million and the 30th best selling PS1 game Yu-Gi-Oh sold 2.5 million. Worse still, Virtua Fighter 2 sold 1 million copies more than the next best selling Saturn game... which was Virtua Fighter.Some people might try and point out that it is unfair to compare these numbers because the Saturn didn't sell as much or that some of these games were pack-ins but that is kinda the point of the OP. Games sell the system as much as the system sells games. If potential big hits like a 3D Sonic or a 3D Phantasy Star landed early and were of good quality, not only would they sell lets say a few million copies each but also move a few million systems. That would in turn create a snowball effect because developers would see systems selling be sure to port games too or development games for the system which leads to more consumer interest which leads to more console sales which leads to more developer interest and so on.Take the Sega 32X, it famously only had 32 games released for it but the list of known cancelled games is 67, that is what a loss of faith will do. In late 96, early 97 companies lost faith in the Saturn and the console began a death spiral. Late 1995 and early 96 was the time they needed to have a killer app either launching or on the horizon. Moving systems not only attracts new games but it but boosts the sales of every game on the market.
I like how PS1 has more than two in OP pic. But you could argue it's realistically more than that.
Why must we always have this thread?Boo fucking hooWe get it, the Saturn didn't have any "real" Sonic, Shut the fuck up.
NiGHTS aged like wine
>>12519706Japan had Sakura Wars, at least. It got popular enough there for movies, stageplays, etc. Is there a PS1 game that's a dating sim/SRPG hybrid? If so, I'd like to play it
>>12521201That's nearly correct, I''d say the Saturn's killer apps were VF2, Sega Rally, and Virtua Cop. Three pretty much perfect arcade ports, taken together, they justified the cost of buying the system.
>>12523378You got a lot of better srpgs on the Playstation without the no-life Otaku pandering dating shit
>>12523408Okay, but that's not what I asked
>>12523280>NiGHTS aged like wineIt really has. The gameplay is timeless.
>>12523280>>12523845It's only remembered for it's girl (male) protag.
>>12519706>A weird 1 hour long arcade game without much content or goals besides high scores? It's this one, git gud
>>12519706>Saturn's killer app?Mr Bones.
>>12519706>killer appnobody called them apps, stop larping and go back to fortnite
The Saturn couldn't compete with this.
>>12523976>only remembered for it's girl (male) protagOnly by freaks grasping at straws for some sort of representation. You will never be a women btw.
>>12519706Sega of Japan didn't know who their audience was. Without Mark Cerny they were at a loss as to who to make games for so they just took a 'spaghetti on the wall' approach and made tons of different games that were all pretty lackluster.
>>12524442The Creator of Sonic The Hedgehog 2
